RED Cinema is currently shipping not one, but two 8K Helium sensor cameras dubbed the RED Epic-W and RED Weapon. All the details, including footage, price, and information on how to upgrade your current RED camera below:
Picture: RED Cinema
My colleague Richard Lackey reported on the gorgeous new Helium 8K sensor back in July, and it seems RED Cinema has been busy working to expand their customer base for 8K beyond director Michael Bay. The Helium 8K sensor has spawned two great looking cameras, each with unique features, so let’s break down both.
The RED 8K Helium Sensor itself is identical for both cameras with the following specifications:
35.4 megapixel CMOS
Pixels: 8192×4320
Size: 29.90mm x 15.77mm
16.5+ stops dynamic range
Here is the official RED Cinema EPIC-W intro video complete with footage out of the camera:
Both cameras sport the user friendly DSMC2 form factor we first saw introduced with the RED Raven earlier this year. The DSMC2 form factor has prompted many wonderful third party accessories and it’s great to see that coming back. Both cameras also capture edit-friendly Apple ProRes 4K or Avid DNxHD/HR up to 30 fps.
Beyond the sensor and module compatibility, each camera is a little different under the hood when it comes to data rate and frames per second options in 8K.
RED Epic W:
The RED Epic-W 8K S35 is built from black magnesium and aluminum alloy and shoots 8K (8192×4320) up to 30 fps, with a data rate of 275 MB/s and 6:1 REDCODE RAW at 8K 24 fps.
Here is an unboxing video of the RED Epic-W from Marques Brownlee:
Price: $29,500 for the Brain. Friendly reminder: you will need additional accessories beyond this before you have a shoot-ready rig, so budget accordingly.
RED Weapon:
The 8k S35 Weapon becomes the new flagship for RED with the capability to shoot 8K (8192×4320) up to 60fps at 300 MB/s, or 8K 75fps at 2.4:1. You can also get 5:1 REDCODE RAW 8K out of the camera at 24fps. The body is made from carbon fiber for an increased cool factor/protection and a slight reduction (0.5 lbs) to overall weight.
There is also an anamorphic-capable Weapon shipping soon complete with upgrade path for existing Weapon owners.
Price: $49,500 for the Brain. Friendly reminder: You will need additional accessories beyond this before you have a shoot ready rig, so budget accordingly.
Picture: RED Cinema
Upgrade Path:
I’m a RED Epic Dragon owner/operator myself, and RED Cinema is working hard to keep me and other operators in the fold with a fantastic upgrade program. All the details for Epic, Scarlet and Dragon owners are below, but this upgrade program means some RED Dragon owners are looking at a price tag as low as $14,500 for upgrading to 8K. A few other manufacturers could take note of this program and follow suit; looking at you, Arri, Sony and Canon. Find out more information on RED owner pricing here.
Picture: RED Cinema/Jarred Land
Ready for 8K? Pick up a RED Epic-W or Weapon here.
There will always be people out there asking a simple question: “Do we really need 8K?”. For me, the answer is clear: I’m always going to want to push the limits of what is possible with the tools I am given. 8K looks gorgeous and I’ll continue shooting higher and higher resolutions until my computer graphics card catches fire like a Samsung Galaxy note 7.
Side view of the upcoming RED Weapon Anamorphic. Picture: RED Cinema

We had a chance to look at the new RED Weapon Helium 8K camera at IBC 2016 for the first time since it was announced in July. Here’s a run through of what we’ve been told at the show floor and what we know so far.
The RED Helium 8K is a new sensor that will be introduced in October 2016 in the RED Weapon and RED Epic W cameras. A limited number of special edition white RED Weapon Helium 8K cameras have been produced, one of which we found at the IBC show.
Specs of the RED Helium 8K (according to nofilmschool.com)
According to this spec sheet, most features should be comparable to those of the original RED Weapon camera, like slow motion in 2K crop mode at up to 240fps and Apple ProRes Proxy recording.
The most important thing to know: this is the first 8K sensor with a super35 sensor size, meaning that the pixels are now twice as dense as before, with 3.65 microns per pixel.
According to early user reports, the lowlight performance is good and the camera is usable at ISO 3200 and possibly beyond, though this certainly has to be tested. It is promising to get this kind of quality and resolution, accessible to many professionals in the near future.
A word about storage requirements in 8K: apparently, each recorded minute will produce 10 to 15 gigabytes of data (i.e.: 4x size of 4K at 5:1 RAW recording), so you will roughly need 1 terabyte for each hour of footage.
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